What We Can Glean About Trump’s True Agenda

Throughout his campaign, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has eschewed detail about the policies he would implement if he won reelection. Wars would be resolved or avoided altogether. Illegal immigration would be curtailed and millions of undocumented migrants repatriated. The production of oil, gas, and coal would spur rapid economic growth in the United States—a country already awash in hydrocarbon production—with no risk of inflation or worrisome consequences for global warming.

Trust me, Trump says on one topic after another. Whatever challenges rear their heads will be fixed and fixed fast, and things will be better than ever before.

Trump is unusually fond of the words “unbelievable” and “incredible,” which pepper his speech whenever he expounds about the glories to come under his leadership. Indeed, it’s hard to believe many of his promises would come to pass. But some policies in the works from Trump and his associates are believable, and late in the campaign, when a lot of news coverage has given over to “he said, she said” silliness, they deserve to be taken more seriously.

What we can expect with near certainty from Trump is a war on norms. This can be seen in the ways that his team is seeking to skirt official arrangements for an orderly transition. It can be seen in talk about a radical downsizing of the federal government, including much of the State Department. And it can be seen in Trump’s reported pledge to give Robert F. Kennedy Jr., someone with no expertise in health care who holds dangerous anti-vaccine views, vast sway over the country’s public health agencies.

All of these disturbing signs are about loosening checks on power—and given what little Trump has said about his true agenda for governing, they are alarming.